


jealous of the rain

by smudgay



Category: Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Spider-Woman (Comic)
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, Jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 10:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16638113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smudgay/pseuds/smudgay
Summary: Jessica gets jealous often, and who can blame her? When you're in love with Captain Marvel, that comes with the territory.But in desperation, she tries to make Carol feel jealous too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Make caroljess canon 2k18

"Abigail's tongue is shaped different," Jessica blurts, "yes, it's as good as you think."

She's not sure why she brings that up—except that is she is. She wants Carol to feel jealous, to react, to give her _something_ to work with.

Carol, ever vigilant, ever casual, simply nods. "Brand? Yeah, I can guess."

* * *

Jessica gets jealous often, so much so that she loathes herself for it. She can't help it though and jealousy is never logical, except in her case it isn't even _warranted_.

It started when she first met Carol, soaked head-to-toe in San Francisco Bay water. She thought, _'here's a woman who somehow manages to be attractive even though she's almost dead'_. And she feels a bit jealous of it, Jessica never looks that good when she's half-dead. But it was a silly passing thought, she has a lot of those and they never mean anything. It should be been the end of it.

And then it wasn't.

Then she sees Carol properly, dressed in her Ms.Marvel costume and her breath catches. Then she flies up into the sky, like a star, and Jessica realizes that her costume is a bit more like a bikini than anything protective at all.

The guy beside her pipes up—' _that's an ass I'd tap'_ —and Jessica is all red with fury.

_'You can't say something like that about her! Do you know what she's just been through? You don't deserve her!'_

Except those words weren't directed at the man, not really anyway. Jessica had thought the exact same thing, her eyes lingering on Carol's backside.

It sucks, being like this.

Then they're friends, and Jessica feels like absolute crap everytime her eyes accidentally ogle her best friend. But it's not her fault, she's only human and Carol is well fit—or so she tells Carol when she notices the staring, and they both laugh and brush it off.

But then other people stare too, and Jessica is green with jealousy.

_'You can't look at her like that!'_

But she has no right, no place to feel that. Carol isn't hers, will never be hers. She can't tell people to stop admiring her friend, stop fliritng with her. She does nothing bit sit back, nurse a beer, and seethe.

And that becomes her ritual for days, then weeks, then _years_.

* * *

 

"You've got a nice ass, Carol," Clint smiles that way he does, as though what he just said was perfectly natural. Jessica hits him on the arm hard enough to make him wince.

"Shut up, Barton," her lips quirked in amusement but her tone is harsh.

"Yours is better, Jess," Clint's grin widens, and there's honesty in his eyes.

Jessica isn't used to compliments, or flirting done so open and free. She likes that about Clint— _liked_ that about him. Her face turns a little red, and she mutters out another 'shut up' before her eyes land on Carol.

"Clint," she looks a little angry, and Jessica mistakes the expression for jealousy until Carol finishes her sentence "aren't you married?"

"No," he rubs the back of his neck, "not anymore."

Carol relaxes as Jessica tenses. Not jealousy, just concern for a friend.

She starts dating Clint soon after, kissing him full on the lips after a mission—right for Carol to see.

She shoots Jessica an encouraging smile when she pulls from Clint and Jessica hates it.

* * *

 

When they break up, Jessica invokes his name very deliberately.

"Clint and I went shopping, actually."

No reaction.

"Oh, I stayed over at Clint's. Sorry, I should have texted."

No reaction.

"Clint was over, he left that here."

Absolutely nothing.

As if she doesn't care, as if she hasn't realized by now that the only thing Jessica wants is a sign that this isn't one-sided—that the way she feels when people saddle up to Carol is the same thing she feels when people do the same to her.

As Carol refuses to give her any sort of reaction, she learns the hard way that maybe…just maybe she should stop trying.

But then she gets drunk, and a drunk Jessica never has much sense.

* * *

"I slept with her, you know," Jessica slurs, leaning on Carol for support as she leads them back to their shared apartment. "That weather girl. It was really hard not to make a precipitation joke while I was in-between her legs—so hard, Carol!"

"Sure, Jess," Carol laughs, only amused, not agitated. Not even delighted to know her bestfriend likes girls too.

Jessica tries again, "she was fun. I should call her."

"Nope," Carol grabs Jessica phone out of her pocket, not taking a single second to linger on her skin. "Call her in the morning, when you're sober."

Nothing at all and _god_ , does it hurt. She feels like a little girl throwing rocks waiting until Carol opens her window and Carol, _that prick_ , never opens her bloody window.

Drunk, lonely and pining for her best friend, she cries into her pillow forgetting all about it in the morning.

* * *

When she's working for Brand, in Madripoor on a self-destructive spiral, she's happy to see that Carol cares. That Carol wants her to come back home, to their home.

She doesn't, she shakes her head and says her buissness isn't done.

When Abigail shows up at Jessica's temporary apartment, dressed down and eager to undress Jessica—she praises herself for not wasting a single thought on Carol the entire time.

When it goes on for a couple of days, when they're both sure they just using eachother, she doesn't think about Carol.

Then Carol shows up at her door, face furrowed with concern. "You're not answering my calls," she says, her eyes drift to Jessica's neck, marked with the evidence of the kind of thing Abigail Brand likes to do when she's got Jessica's soft skin under her lips.

"I've been busy," Jessica replies and she lets Carol in to her hotel room. The sheets are a mess. Abigail's left her panties in the corner since Jessica ripped them, and the thought of someone like Abigail Brand going commando is unbelievably amusing, but Jessica can't bother to think about that now. Now, she's thinking about Carol and all those times she forced herself to think about anything but her half-kree all-blonde friend come rushing back into her. She thinks about how much she wished it wasn't Abigail that had been undressing her for the past month, but Carol instead. How much she misses her friend, how much she misses their friendship.

And how much she hates herself for ever wanting to be more than that, more than friends. For every thinking someone like her was allowed to ever hope for that.

Carol doesn't bat an eyelash, and Jessica has since learned to stop being so sad everytime Carol doesn't flinch.

"I missed you," she says, as if those words weren't the exact thing Jessica longed to hear.

"I missed you too," Jessica says back, because it's true and she's tired and she just wants Carol to hold her.

* * *

 

Carol gets her new outfit, it's sleek and sexy and so much better than that dumb Ms. Marvel costume.

"Woo," Jessica lets out a whistle when Carol models it for her, "looking _hawt_."

"You're an idiot, Jess," she laughs, rolling her eyes but amused all the same.

"Finally, I can stop hearing people talking about your arse," Jessica leans back, admiring her friend and her cool new outfit.

"Jealous?" Carol quirks up a brow.

 _Yes_ , Jessica wants to say. _You_ _have_ _no_ _idea_.

But Carol doesn't mean it like that. Carol means it in the jealous-they're-not-talking-about-your-ass sense. Not that I-hate-that-I-cant-touch-you sense.

She forces out a smile, "you wish."

And _god_ , does she want Carol to wish.

* * *

There's a party. Jessica can't remember what for but Carol is here and Clint and Abigail _and_ _god_ , Jessica realizes just how many people she's slept with over the years.

"Lookin' good, Jess," Clint smiles, popping a cheese cube into his mouth. Jessica can tell he's uncomfortable, and trying to use humor to dissipate his anxiety. She can also tell it isn't working so she simply points to Kate and tells Clint to go bother her instead.

"He's right," Carol slides into his place, smiling wide with a glass of water in her hand. She wearing a suit, one that's tight on all the right spots and all Jessica could think when she saw Carol walk in was how much she wanted to rip that thing off her. "You do look good."

Jessica looks over at her friend. Compared to Carol, she doesn't shine nearly as bright. She's wearing one of her old red dresses from her S.H.I.E.L.D days, it's not a dress Carol has ever seen but it's one Jessica has worn quite a bit.

She wanted something familiar if she has to be here.

"I always look good," she counters with a smirk, "tell me something I don't know."

Jessica's green eyes fall on to a woman regarding Carol with interest, she's got eyes full of desire and a tongue that darts out over her lips everytime Carol moves. Jessica hates it, she hates that woman.

She's jealous, she gets jealous often. She's jealous of how people stare at Carol, how they talk about her.

It took her a while but she realizes it's less possessiveness and more envy. Sure, she'd love it if she could grab Carol close everytime someone gawked at her so she could smile with pride and say ' _this one's mine'_.

But mostly she wishes she could do that; stare so openly, desire so freely.

She hates that woman because she could walk up here, she could flirt with Carol and tell her she likes the way her biceps look in that jacket. She could try to have the things that Jessica can never have, and she hates this stranger for it.

"Hey," Carol leans over, concern wrought on her face as she tries to get her friend to look at her. "Are you okay? You've been tense all night."

Jessica forces a smile, "yeah well, when all your exes are together in one room, you'd be tense too." This time she doesn't say it for a reaction, she doesn't care anymore. She says it because it's true and kind of funny and she thinks Carol will appreciate the laugh.

Carol doesn't laugh, and for the first time in Jessica's life she notices a reaction. Maybe they'd always been there and she was simply too self-absorbed to notice them. Maybe Carol is just tired of hiding them. Maybe this is new, Carol is just now feeling this. Maybe it's been built up, suddenly she's had enough of the way Jessica throws her romances in Carol's face.

Jessica doesn't know what it is, but she doesn't like it. For all the times she wanted Carol to feel something, she doesn't like it when it happens. She doesn't like the look of pain on her face, or the way she forces out a smile.

"Yeah," Carol's lips form a line thin, "I can only imagine."

Jessica doesn't want to push it, she doesn't want to stand there and demand a reaction. It's immature and wrong—but she needs to know, needs to see if she didn't just imagine that frown. "I can't believe I've dated this many people," she tries to sound casual, "do you want talk to one of my exes? They probably have very colorful stories."

"No," Carol's jaw tightens, "I don't want to do that. Why would I want to do that?"

Jessica simply shrugs, "it could be fun."


	2. Chapter 2

After the party, she's noticed it more, the way Carol tenses and forces out casual conversation. Jessica can't help but to wonder when this started, it hurts her to know it wasn't there when she wanted it to be—or that it was and she never noticed.

"I stayed over at Clint's."

Carol's hand tightens into a fist, her knuckles white. "Why'd you do that?" Her voice is steady.

Jessica shrugs, pretending like she's not watching Carol closely, "I forgot to pay my Netflix subscription and I wanted to watch something."

"You could have used mine."

"I don't know your password."

"You could have asked."

"He called me first."

* * *

 

"What do you want on your pizza?" Carol calls out to Jessica, whose head is in boxes trying to find Carol's old Star Wars DVDs.

"You pick!" She yells back, then pauses and adds, "bacon!"

Jessica doesn't notice it until she's pulled the boxset out from under a couple of CDs but Carol had been standing behind her, paper in her hand.

In dark handwriting, sprawled on to a cheap napkin read: " _CALL ME. XO_ " followed by a number.

"Is this yours?" She asks, still on the phone with the pizza people.

"Oh yeah," Jessica stands up to grab it, "I had to go to this bar for a case and—well, it doesn't matter. I've already called her so you can throw that out."

Carol crumples it in her hand, turning back around before Jessica can read her expression. "Yeah, bacon and mushrooms, please."

* * *

 

"They want me to go back to S.W.O.R.D." Jessica sighs, her legs are in Carol's lap as the watch some dumb made-for-TV movie.

"Do you want to go?" Carol asks, reaching over Jessica to grab some popcorn which she promptly pops into her mouth.

"I don't know," Jessica breathes out, joking, "Abigail's been on my arse about it, and not the way I want her to be. You'd think for a woman that's married to her work she'd be a little less clingy."

Carol pushes Jessica's legs off her and stands up. "I need to go to the washroom."

She doesn't come back until the movie is done.

* * *

 

Jessica can't remember how it's happening but suddenly they're yelling.

"What do you think you're doing, Jess?" Carol's hands are balled at her sides.

"What am I doing?" Jessica scoffs, "what do you think you're doing? You can just say stuff like that!"

"Like what, Jess? Like what?"

"Like you're my jealous girlfriend! You can't just tell off someone I'm talking to!" Jessica throws her arms up, annoyed her at closest friend. They've fought before, they've yelled at eachother before—but never about something like this.

"Flirting," Carol corrects, "you were flirting, not just talking."

Jessica blinks, astonished, "so?"

"So?" Carol yells back, equally as dumbfounded as Jessica—that her best friend could be so clueless. "So, this is a mission. We're on a mission."  
  
"And you don't think I know that? That I do things for a reason?"

"Oh, do you suddenly have reasons for throwing yourself at people? That's news to me, Jess. I watched a good stream of people come and go out of your bedroom and I know—I know—that you never have a good reason."

Jessica grabs her jacket, tearing past Carol. "And so what? It's none of your buissness."

She slams the door behind her, not daring to look back.

* * *

 

There's a tension between them, and not the fun will-they-won't-they kind. It's the they-definitely-won't kind, the friendship-on-the-rocks kind.

The sit on opposite ends of the quinjet, a childish way to display their displeasure.

The anger is palatable and the Avengers all feel it.

* * *

 

"Can I come in?"

"No."

"Jess…"

It's funny, the way Carol says that. Her name spoken so softly, so filled with knowing. She understands that Jessica never says no to her, never twice at least.

"Fine," Jessica breathes out, opening the door for her friend. Ex-friend. Still-a-friend. Would-always-be-her-friend. No matter what they argued over. "But you get five words."

"Don't need it," Carol steps inside, "I'm sorry."

Jessica hugs Carol, not because she completely forgives her or because she's conceding that the blonde was right, but because she missed her.

"I'm sorry too."

* * *

 

"Oh no," Jessica throws up a hand, "you are not wearing that."

Carol twirls, feeling a little embarrassed and amused all in one. Unlike the last party, she's chosen to go in a dress. One of her older ones, and it's a little small in places. It keeps riding up her thigh and her clevage is much larger than she ever remembers it being. She's probably not going to go with it, but she loves the way Jessica fumbles to find words. "Why not?"

"Please don't," Jessica almost begs, "I don't think I can stand a whole night of people tripping over themselves for you—more than they usually do, which is torture enough."

Carol freezes, her eyes watching Jessica through the reflection in the mirror. She breathes out, then in, then out again—all ragged. "You can't—you can't just say stuff like that, Jess."

"Like what?"

"Nevermind, forget it."

"No, Carol, like what?"

The blonde steadies herself, looking at her friend. There's a line they formed there, existing in the metaphorical of their friendship. Carol suspects it started when she first met Jessica, when there's no good way to ask the person who saved your life out on a date.

She thought, ' _later, I can ask her later.'_

But then they became friends, and there's never a good way to ask your friend out. Then there was Clint, and the line became a wall, then a line again.

But there's nothing holding that line now, no boyfriend or girlfriend or Jessica trying creep into the apartment after a one-night stand as though Carol can't hear every single footstep.

So Captain Marvel does what Captain Marvel does best, she dives in head-first.

"Like that," she elaborates, "like you don't want people on me. Like you're jealous and you're trying to get a rise out of me. I can't take it. I can't take this not knowing where you stand Jessica. You backtrack everything you say and where do you think that leaves me?"

"Carol—"

"No, forget it. Forget I said anything."

This time, it's Carol who slams the door behind her.

* * *

 

When Carol goes up into space she wants to tell Jessica it's not because of her, because of their conversation but she doesn't.

They both know it is, just a little bit, because of that.

* * *

 

"Do you know how much of an idiot you are?" Jessica is standing there, in the pouring rain, outside Carol's Statue of Liberty living space. "Do you? Honestly? Do you?"

Carol blinks, moving aside to let the woman in.

"You drop a whole speech of feelings on me and then fly up into space so I can't say anything then you come back and you don't even tell me?" Jessica scoffs, "forget the feelings part, don't you think you should at least tell your best fucking friend that you're back from space?"

Her hair is wet and Carol hates that she loves the way it sticks to her face. That she likes the way it makes Jessica's green eyes pop.

"I'm so—"

"No," Jessica raises a finger, "I'm going to speak now. You get to fly up into space so I get to speak. Firstly, fuck you. Secondly, of course I'm jealous. Of course, I've been jealous. Of a lot of things. You're Captain Marvel, people love you. But worst of all they flirt with you the way I wish I could so yeah—I'm jealous. But you gave me nothing! For years! No indication that you like me at all! Then you just drop it and fly to space? Fuck you."

She breathes heavily and Carol takes that as her chance to get a couple of words in. She doesn't know what to say so she simple whimpers. "You think I wasn't jealous too?"

"If you were, I never noticed." She snarls, rasing her hand to start off on another tangent when Carol steps closer, with something Jessica has never seen twinkling in her eye.

"I tried to pretend it wasn't there, I didn't want to hold you back, stop you from doing what you wanted," Carol's voice is soft, gentle, the kind of tone Jessica can't be mad at.

"You didn't tell me you were back," Jessica breathes, defeated but wanting to say something anyway.

"I know," Carol closes the distance between them, cupping Jessica's face, "I know."

"You're an idiot."

"I know."

"Are you going to kiss me?"

"Are you going to tell me about how great Abigail's weird alien tongue is?"

"Depends," Jessica smirks and Carol wants nothing more than to wipe that smirk off her, "are you a good kisser?"

Carol presses her lips to Jessica's, years of wanting behind them.

"You tell me."


End file.
